Court Acquits 4 Men Dismisses Murder Charge Over Glaring Contradictions

---

 
Lawyers Eu Kah Mun (left), Geethan Ram Vincent (second from left) and Gabriel Susayan (second from right), after the acquittal at the High Court in Shah Alam yesterday. With them are the four accused.
SHAH ALAM: Four men accused of murdering a 33-year-old man in Gombak in 2019 have been acquitted by the High Court which ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
The accused – K Suresh, 33, V Gobinathan, 36, Abdul Malek Najeeb Deen, 36, and G Navinthiran, 30 – walked free after Justice Norsharidah Awang found “glaring contradictions” in the evidence against them.
They had been charged with murdering D Saravan, 33, who was allegedly attacked near a river behind a restaurant called Anita’s Corner at around 10.30pm on July 30, 2019.
The prosecution called 20 witnesses, including four of the victim’s friends, who claimed they saw the attack and identified all four accused.
One of the accused, Abdul Malek, was said to have slashed Saravan with a weapon.
Justice Norsharidah ruled that the prosecution’s case was riddled with inconsistencies, from the time and location of the attack to the cause of death itself.
She said while the witnesses insisted the assault happened at 10.30pm on July 30, a medical officer’s report showed that Saravan was admitted to hospital at 11.45pm on July 29, a full day earlier. She said another witness said a doctor only attended to the victim on July 31.
Justice Norsharidah said there was also another major discrepancy about where the incident took place. She said witnesses claimed it happened behind the eatery, while the investigating officer’s report showed that the fight occurred in front of the Batu Caves temple.
She also highlighted inconsistencies in the cause of death, with the post-mortem report stating it was due to multiple slash wounds while a medical report listed heart failure (acute myocardial infarction) and severe sepsis.
Justice Norsharidah also dismissed the credibility of the eyewitnesses, who had claimed they could clearly see the accused despite it being late at night.
She said when she saw the photographs of the crime scene, she found the area was so dark that even the investigating officer confirmed it was impossible to identify anyone.
She then acquitted all four men without their defence being called.
Deputy public prosecutor Norhashimah Hashim prosecuted, while lawyers Geethan Ram Vincent, Eu Kah Mun and Gabriel Susayan represented the accused. - FMT

---